


Let the World Burn

by superfluouskeys



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, cassandra is a closeted lesbian bye, i don't make the rules except that i do and those are the rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-15 22:41:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9261170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluouskeys/pseuds/superfluouskeys
Summary: It began as real, honest loathing, then turned to distant, tense respect. Then Inquisitor Lavellan may have sort of, accidentally, developed feelings.





	1. Chapter 1

It began as real, honest loathing.

She had never trusted shemlen, much as her clan liked to play nice with them. Elves weren't people to them, she could feel it when they looked at her, and she was sure nothing good would come of humouring them.

Sure enough, they'd sent her here to play nice, and she'd woken from a half-remembered horror aching all over, feeling sick, like something _wrong_ flowed and crackled through her veins—hands chained to the ground and a shem warrior knocking her about.

_Tell me why we shouldn't kill you._

_We need her, Cassandra._

_To the Void with both of them,_ she'd thought.

Cassandra Pentaghast was the sort of person who was very devoted to her ideals, and Elonaya had never held any great love for those sorts of people, either. The Inquisition was full of them, and this had isolated her nearly as much as being a Dalish away from her clan.

She'd practically flung herself at every elf she'd encountered and received little more than cool detachment from most. The city elf Sera boasted of her hatred for elves, and chided Elonaya for being too 'elfy', whatever that meant, and the strange mage Solas had no obvious affinity—was neither city elf nor Dalish, but something else entirely, though she'd yet to put her finger on just what that could be.

In the end, the only real sympathy she'd been offered after the trauma that had ultimately reshaped the course of her entire existence had been from a surfacer dwarf, of all people, and she was later embarrassed to remember that she hadn't quite known how to accept the gesture at the time.

She would have liked to avoid Seeker Pentaghast in those early days, but it quickly became clear that she simply could not afford to. Now that Elonaya was a symbol of something Cassandra believed in, Cassandra swore to protect her, sometimes several times a day. On top of that, Cassandra was an uncommonly good warrior. Elonaya would not have done well to go wandering about without her help.

Still they traveled together in tense silence. Sometimes Elonaya's shoulders ached just from the effort of hating Cassandra and all she stood for. Varric, the dwarf, was a talker, and tried to break the tension every few hours by offering someone a seemingly innocuous question, but invariably only a few words were exchanged before they fell silent once more, and no one was much happier for having spoken at all.

One night, though, when they'd been trudging through the Hinterlands for what seemed an eternity and finally found a safe enough place to make camp, Cassandra had approached her with a log for the fire in her hands and some kind of hesitant intention upon her immutably stern features.

"It...occurs to me," said Cassandra as she added the log to the fire, "...I don't know much about you."

 _Just now?_ she'd wanted to snap, or, _it occurs to me, too_. But something about Cassandra's surprising awkwardness had given her pause.

She loathed it—did not like to show a drop of mercy to people who didn't deserve it—but lately she'd found herself with the horrible desire to act with compassion for people who would happily have slain her a few weeks prior. It was something about the way they looked at her, now that she was their Herald of Andraste. The world was becoming such a bleak and frightening place, and they looked to her with something like hope drowning in desperation.

It turned her stomach, for what could she do in the end but disappoint them all? She was not holy or even particularly gifted. But somehow she could not bring herself to let them down. Not as long as she could help it.

"Well..." she ran a hand through her hair uncomfortably. "What would you know of me?"

Cassandra sat, eyes downcast. "I'm...not sure. Where are you from?"

Elonaya almost laughed. _You don't even know that?_ she wanted to say, but bit this back, too. She'd already decided to give this conversation a chance. "Dalish clans don't really stay in one place for long," she said, unable to keep a slight edge from her voice. Cassandra was not a Templar, technically, but she might as well have been. "But mostly the Free Marches."

"Oh... I...didn't think your people roamed that far north. Clearly I'm mistaken."

There was one thing Elonaya could say in Cassandra's favour, albeit very grudgingly at the time. For all her devotion to her questionable ideals, she was quick to admit when she had been wrong, or even when she had doubts about her course of action.

"I'm told some members of your clan might still be alive," said Cassandra, and again something that shouldn't have meant anything felt a bit like a punch to the gut. _Some. Might._ "Do you intend to go back?"

Elonaya felt sick to her stomach, suddenly overwhelmed by the past she'd been ignoring for weeks. _None of your business_ , she wanted to snap, but held her tongue yet again. She could now clearly see something her Keeper had warned her about time and time again, something she'd always coldly disregarded: Cassandra was legitimately trying to be civil to her, and she was reacting with anger Cassandra had no way of understanding.

"That's..." she began, slowly. "...a bit complicated."

"Oh?"

"Before I left..." Elonaya frowned, dug her fingernails into her knees. "...another mage was discovered among our people. That's one too many. She is...permitted to stay with her family, so long as I am gone. So, if I were to return..."

She could feel Cassandra's eyes on her, burning, horrified.

Elonaya looked up to meet her gaze. "Nothing so horrific as whatever you're thinking," she said, with the ghost of a smile. "Only that she'd have to be traded to another clan. She's so young yet, and I..." she averted her eyes again, dug the toe of her boot into the ground. "I'm not certain I'd make a very good Keeper, anyway."

Cassandra was silent for a moment, and Elonaya was left to contemplate the weight of the words she'd barely even had time to process internally before she'd spoken them aloud.

"I am...sorry to hear that, my Lady Herald."

Elonaya ran her hand through her hair, jarred from her depressing reverie. "You could call me by my name, you know. Since you've decided to treat me like a person."

This she had been unable to bite back, but surprisingly, Cassandra did not take offense. "I...confess I know only your clan name, Lady Lavellan."

"Elonaya." She looked up to meet Cassandra's tentative gaze, and Cassandra awarded her a small, nearly imperceptible smile.

"Elonaya," Cassandra echoed, and Elonaya's heart fluttered unhelpfully.

* * *

After that, it was something like distant respect, coloured with a hazy sort of _something else_ , which Elonaya was hesitant to admit to even in the privacy of her own mind. Out of necessity and a love for tradition, the Dalish had strict rules on love and courtship. Though many found their way around such rules, and though one might expect Elonaya to do the same simply out of a healthy distaste for authority, the truth was that no one had ever particularly struck her fancy. Looking at Cassandra, of all people—a human, a fearsome warrior, and a woman who would happily have killed her on sight—and feeling...whatever this feeling might be...was uniquely terrifying, and Elonaya did her best to ignore it.

She chalked it up to a troubled misunderstanding of her own heart. Because Elonaya felt so alone here, and because Cassandra had been so cold to her, and was suddenly so intent upon being marginally pleasant, she'd mixed up her emotions in her head. Nothing more.

And if, perhaps, sometimes she had accidentally blurted out something she hadn't been able to keep inside ("You're kind of a force of nature, aren't you?" A scowl. "You flatter me.", or "I think you're rather delightful, actually." A crack in the voice? "I object. There is nothing delightful about me."), well, there was only so quickly she could counteract a lifetime of unhelpful reactionary behaviour.

But she'd never dreamed that her tragic attraction could possibly matter to Cassandra—never even caught a glimpse of what might appeal to Cassandra aside from swinging a sword, for that was how she seemed to spend all of her time, on duty or off. Then, one day, she'd come across Cassandra reading a book, and Cassandra had been so enthralled by it that she hadn't noticed Elonaya's approach.

"Good book?"

Cassandra had jumped. Staggered backward. Hidden the book behind her back. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Elonaya raised her eyebrows. "Are you...blushing?"

Cassandra was mortified. "What would I have to blush about?"

"You tell me."

"It's of no interest to you, I'm certain," said Cassandra sternly, but if Elonaya's curiosity hadn't been piqued already, now she was practically ravenous for more information. Cassandra kept up her customary grave expression for a full minute before she relented with a sigh. "It's a book."

"I can see that," said Elonaya, but when Cassandra finally continued, the truth was so much better than she could have imagined.

"It's...Varric wrote it," Cassandra continued, slowly. Varric, whom she had also chained up in a dungeon for questioning! Varric, who she'd just a few days prior been ready to murder with her bare hands for keeping Hawke from her! "Swords and Shields, it's called."

"So, you like to read," Elonaya pressed.

"It's frivolous," Cassandra snapped. "There are more important things to do."

"That's just her favourite." This from the Tevinter mage Dorian, who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, no doubt lured by the promise of mockery.

"Nobody asked you, Tevinter!" Cassandra pointed at him accusatorily, a clear warning, but Dorian was utterly unconcerned.

"Couldn't finish the last one you lent me. I actually feel dumber for having tried." And then he was gone, and Cassandra was beside herself.

"It's literature... _smutty_ literature," she confessed at last.

It was all Elonaya could do to keep her jaw from dropping.

"Whatever you do, don't tell Varric!" Cassandra begged.

"Maybe I should read that book," Elonaya muttered before she could catch herself.

"You? No!"

Elonaya raised her chin in a challenge. "Why not me?"

"You're...you're the Inquisitor!" Cassandra gesticulated wildly.

"Right."

"They're terrible," Cassandra shook her head, clutched the book to her chest. "And magnificent," she breathed, reverent.

And Elonaya was horribly captivated all over again.

"And this one ends in a cliffhanger! And I know Varric is working on..." she stopped herself, then the light went out in her eyes and she glared like they were enemies again. "Pretend you don't know this about me," she said, flatly, then stormed off into the courtyard.

Elonaya located Varric in Skyhold's tavern.

"Bit early, isn't it?" she greeted him.

"Well, when you barely sleep, who can say?" Varric replied good-naturedly and raised his mug in her direction. "Need something?"

Elonaya sat. "It's...more of a personal favour," she began, unable to keep a smile from her face.

Varric folded his hands on the table. "I'm listening."

"Cassandra is interested in the next chapter of Swords and Shields."

At first, Varric's expression didn't change. "I must have heard that wrong."

Elonaya shook her head.

* * *

After that, it was...warm. Hesitant, strange, and surprising, but decidedly warm.

"So," said Elonaya one night on the Storm Coast as she stoked the campfire with her magic. "Cassandra Pentaghast has a secret love of romance novels."

Cassandra glared at her, but there was no malice in it anymore. "Have you stayed up so late simply to mock me?"

"No," said Elonaya. "It was just surprising, is all." Then, added, before she could think better of it, "One wonders what this reveals about the mysterious love life of the famous lady Seeker."

Cassandra scoffed. "Nothing," she said firmly. Then, almost an afterthought, "Or...more than it should, possibly. It's been said that I hold up romantic ideals as a way of protecting myself from...real intimacy."

"Do you think that's true?"

Cassandra rested her chin on her hand. "Perhaps," she said. "I prefer to think that I haven't found the right person."

Elonaya averted her eyes, focused her attention on the ebb and flow of the fire. "So, you've never...I don't know, loved anyone?"

Cassandra was silent for what felt like an eternity, so long that Elonaya began to wonder if she would answer at all, and felt foolish for having asked.

"There was someone, once."

Elonaya raised her eyebrows. "Only once?" she said aloud, before she could think better of it. The Dalish had all these absurdly strict rules about courting, and they still found all manner of ways around them. She'd always heard humans were far freer in their affections.

Fortunately, Cassandra did not take offense. She nodded solemnly. "Only once," she said. "Even then, it was...I don't know."

"What?"

Cassandra gave her a sidelong glance, then returned her attention to the fire. "It feels...a bit cruel to speak ill of him now. He died at the Conclave. A good man. A mage, no less," she laughed humourlessly. 'But no man has ever quite lived up to my expectations."

There was some hidden meaning in the words, something Elonaya was missing. Cassandra looked deeply troubled, and would not quite meet her eyes.

Elonaya fidgeted idly with a loose bit of fabric on the knee of her breeches. "I confess I don't know much about romance," she said slowly. "But I do..." she glanced up, found that she had Cassandra's full, rapt attention, dark eyes practically looking right through her, and Elonaya had to avert her eyes to continue, for she felt her words catch in her throat at the sight. "I do think...you're right...to be discerning." She licked her lips, found that her mouth had run suddenly dry. "Anyone would be lucky to have your attention."

Cassandra was eerily silent for a moment, but Elonaya did not dare meet her gaze just now. She felt raw, exposed in a way she never had before.

"Thank you," said Cassandra.

Elonaya shrugged, ran her hand through her hair.

After another long silence, Cassandra continued, so quietly the wind could have drowned out her voice. "I know what people see," she said. "I am a warrior. I am...blunt and difficult, and self-righteous. But my heart lies beneath all that. It yearns for..." she sighed heavily. "...for things I cannot have."

* * *

Then, quite suddenly for something that had seemed to build so abstrusely, it had come crashing down.

Cassandra was pacing, shoulders tense, eyes downcast, hands uncommonly fidgety. She was silent for several minutes, even though she was the one who had brought Elonaya up here to the ramparts to speak privately. "The...flirting. With me. I have...noticed it. Unless it is my imagination, which is entirely possible."

Elonaya was stricken speechless. She felt her palms sweat and the tips of her ears flush hot. _I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it_ , she wanted to stutter out, but swallowed the impulse. "Oh?" she offered, instead.

Cassandra looked up at her at last, and Elonaya felt a lump form in her throat. "Is it?" she pressed. "My imagination?"

Elonaya shook her head. She did not trust her voice. A horrible mixture of pride and insecurity were warring inside her, and she had no idea which would reign in the end.

"You're the Inquisitor, the Herald of Andraste..." said Cassandra. "And my leader...and..." she averted her gaze "And a woman."

As it turned out, pride showed itself first. "And an elf. And a mage. And a non-believer," Elonaya supplied, sounding much calmer, and a fair bit colder than she felt. "I wonder, which one of those is the biggest problem for you?"

Internally, she admonished herself relentlessly. What kind of game did she think she was playing at? She should have gone with her first impulse, apologized profusely for even daring to entertain such a delusion, and dropped the matter as soon as it had begun. It was pure, possibly self-destructive recklessness that made her challenge Cassandra, a visceral reaction to the unreadably conflicted look in her eyes.

"It's not...that's not..." Cassandra was stammering, shaking her head, and backing away. "I hope you understand, I cannot..."

Elonaya felt a horrible churning in her stomach, felt like the exposed skin of her face must be red. Perhaps she'd brought it on herself, pressing the issue when Cassandra was trying to let her down gently, but there was something infinitely more humiliating about this display, and it rendered Elonaya even more prideful. She held her chin high. "Tact isn't your strong point, Cassandra," she said unkindly. "Perhaps you ought to finish saying whatever it is you're dancing around and be done with it."

Usually barbs like that rolled right off of Cassandra, but this one, for some reason, did not. She looked as though someone had stricken her—no, not that...she didn't look angry or vengeful. She looked as though her feelings had been hurt. Elonaya had never seen anything even resembling that circumstance on her. She regretted her words immediately, but held her ground, waited, feigned coldness.

Now Cassandra's eyes were downcast and stormy, like the first day Elonaya had seen her, marching forward despite knowing she was surrounded by people who hated her, because she knew she had to.

"I'm afraid I'm not sure what I mean to say," she said quietly. "Perhaps it is simpler than I have made it out to be in my mind. It cannot be, much as..." her frown deepened, and she shook her head. "Much as I wish it could," she finished cryptically, then turned and disappeared back into the fortress.

* * *

"You're staring. It's the chest hair, isn't it?"

Elonaya dragged her palm over her forehead, tried to call on some of that reckless courage that had so easily caused her to ruin everything hours earlier. "You...write...things, yeah?"

Varric awarded her a look of incredulity before he replied. "That...is a rough start. Something on your mind?"

Elonaya rested her head in her hands. "I don't even know where to start," she said. "And I don't want to trouble you with what might well be nothing, but there's no one else I can really talk to..."

"You know we're friends, right?" said Varric with a shrug. "If you need something, all you have to do is ask."

Elonaya looked up, suddenly feeling the full weight of the past few months as though it literally rested upon her shoulders. Friends. The word sounded so foreign to her. Friends were what her clanmates called lethal'len, but that felt deeply personal, and utterly divorced from this place and everyone in it. Elonaya had been so othered by her Dalish origins, even by fellow elves, and had been put on a pedestal as some kind of holy symbol by everyone else. Though she had taken note of Varric's insistence upon treating her like a person, she had never felt quite secure enough in this knowledge to count him as a friend.

"Thank you, Varric," was all she managed to say aloud.

Varric smiled, somewhat bemusedly, and inclined his head. "Now, you were saying?"

Elonaya ran her hand through her hair with a heavy sigh. "I may have sort of...accidentally...developed...feelings."

When she failed to continue, Varric chuckled. "Story of my life. Any particular variety?"

Elonaya covered her eyes. "For Cassandra."

Varric choked on his drink.

"I gotta tell you, Inquisitor," he said, still sputtering, "I think I could've helped you out with wooing _literally_ anyone else."

This amused Elonaya enough to distract her momentarily from her woes. "Oh, come on. Anyone?"

Varric's response was a cocky grin and a raise of his chin. "Try me."

Elonaya wrinkled her nose and thought of her companions. "The Iron Bull," she tried.

Varric scoffed. "Easy. Take him dragon hunting. And probably be down for some kinky shit. Come on, give me a real challenge."

"Okay...Solas."

"Likes the Fade, old elf shit, and feeling smart. Just fucking listen to him yammer without falling asleep, or even _with_ falling asleep, simple. Next!"

Elonaya laughed, and the sound and the feel of it surprised her. She hadn't really laughed in what seemed a lifetime. "How about...the Champion of Kirkwall!"

"Hawke?" Varric shook his head. "Oh, she'd be all over you given the chance, Inquisitor—you wouldn't even have to try."

Elonaya ordered a beer, even though she wasn't normally much of a drinker, and she took a long, strangely fulfilling gulp from it once it had arrived.

"But the Seeker..." Varric said slowly. "She's kind of a wild card from my perspective. If I'd had to guess a week ago I'd have said she wasn't interested in people, period. I mean, who'd have guessed she had a soft spot for poorly-written romance novels?"

Elonaya bit the inside of her cheek for a moment before she decided to share the precise nature of her confusion. "She sort of...turned me down. And the sensible part of me knows that should be the end of it. But it was strange, like she didn't want to."

Varric scratched his chin contemplatively, took a long sip of his own ale. "I'll have you know this was not a topic I ever in my life considered needing to devote any thought to."

Elonaya gave him a little bow and a flourish of her hand. "I have become very good at getting into surprising kinds of trouble."

Varric sighed deeply, took another drink. "All right. Bear with me here. She's a strong character, right? Has this image of herself she likes to project, and then this secret inner world where she fantasizes about...I don't know, poetry and flowers or some shit." He sighed again, leaned back in his chair and looked up at the tavern's haphazardly patched-up ceiling. "I'm thinking maybe you're already on the right track—that the poetry and flowers thing seems like maybe it's a front, too, right?"

Elonaya contemplated her drink, nodded slowly. "Something like that, yeah."

Varric rested his elbows on the table. "Look, I don't know much about real relationships. I just write them and don't follow my own advice. But maybe..." he shook his head, disbelieving of his own words. "Maybe the Seeker just wants to be treated like a real person. Same as anyone with a legend hanging over her head."

* * *

But in the end, it was little more than chance. One wrong move, one different choice, and it might have gone unspoken between them forever.

"Falling back!"

She'd heard Cassandra cry out, but the battle was almost finished. Just a few more blasts and...! The rift was clear. She held out her hand, guided less by any real knowledge she possessed and more by the dark magic the mark on her palm always sputtered, and twisted and pulled the rift closed.

It had been a particularly rough fight, and everyone was looking a little worse for wear. The Terrors, they were called, those were the worst. They'd jump out of nowhere with their razor-sharp talons and stab you right in the—

Cassandra was still on the ground, on her knees, hunched over and clutching her abdomen. Elonaya rushed over to help her, but she wasn't much of a healer, and Solas and Vivienne had stayed behind for this trip. Cassandra would have to wait until they got back to Skyhold to receive any proper care.

They made camp for the evening right where the rift had been a moment prior, and everyone retreated to their tents to rest rather quickly. Elonaya made a fire, then helped Cassandra remove her heavy armour so she could get a better crack at the Terror's damage.

"It really isn't necessary, I will be fine," Cassandra protested when Elonaya asked her to sit and lean back, but Elonaya knew well enough by now that her words were a feeble front.

"Of course you'll be fine, but wouldn't it be better if you didn't spend the rest of the journey in pain?"

Cassandra made a noise of disapproval in response, but had no further argument to offer.

Elonaya peeled Cassandra's blood-soaked tunic away from her skin and cleaned the wound, was surprised by how easily she fell back into something she hadn't done since she'd left the Dalish. "You're in good hands," she said quietly while she worked. "I've been trying to learn better healing magic, but with my clan, this sort of thing was much more my strong point."

She secured some bandages over the wound in Cassandra's side from a little kit she'd forgotten she had in her pack, and looked up to find Cassandra staring at her. That unreadable, deeply conflicted look was back in her eyes, the one Elonaya hadn't seen since the day Cassandra had rejected her for something she hadn't even fully acknowledged.

Cassandra reached up and touched the right side of Elonaya's face, the side with more unmarked skin than vallaslin, but it was the vines of blood writing that her fingers traced. Elonaya froze, wide-eyed, feeling suddenly hot and cold all at once.

"What about you?" Cassandra asked, as though some conversation were occurring inside her mind, and Elonaya were just now privy to it.

"Hm?" Elonaya faintly realized she still had the hem of Cassandra's bloodstained tunic clutched between her fingers, but could not will herself to move, or even exhale.

"Have you ever loved anyone?"

Elonaya reached out and smoothed Cassandra's hair. It was still wet, whether from the constant rain of from sweat was difficult to tell, but surprisingly soft. Elonaya shook her head, felt surprising tears pricking at the corners of her eyes and swallowed hard in an effort to keep them at bay. "Not til now," she said, so quietly the raging storm around them almost drowned it out entirely.

Cassandra pushed herself upright, slowly and stiffly, and Elonaya was sure she would drag herself to her feet just to retire to her tent without another word. Her dark eyes seemed somehow to be burning, reflecting the flickering campfire, and she wore that same troubled expression that Elonaya could not read and could not ignore and could not erase from her dreams.

Cassandra laced her fingers through Elonaya's hair (also wet, and coarse and matted from the dreadful weather), rested her hand at the base of Elonaya's neck, and pulled her into a kiss.

Everything went dim. The storm seemed a distant, hushed sound, the warmth of the campfire suddenly overwhelming. Elonaya grasped Cassandra by the shoulders as though she might fall without them, though they were already sitting on the ground, and was captivated by the feeling of hard muscle beneath her fingers.

The kiss ended almost as soon as it had begun, and Elonaya was left breathless, unable or unwilling to meet Cassandra's eyes. They remained not a breath apart for what seemed an eternity. Elonaya's thoughts were in an unintelligible whirl, her throat felt tight with unshed tears, and her heart and the hand that held the Anchor both hurt overwhelmingly.

She had the distinct sensation that this was a singular moment, unlikely ever to occur again, and unthinkable to continue once they were back in their right minds and clean clothes and comfortable beds. Cassandra had turned her down already, and Elonaya had pushed her too far even then. She was unable to reconcile that conversation with this one, or indeed any conversation with any other between them, and for the moment, for whatever time they had, she did not wish to try.

Elonaya balled her marked hand into a fist and wrapped her arms about Cassandra's neck, all but dragging her into another kiss. Cassandra made a small noise, something between a groan and a whimper, and in turn wrapped her arms about Elonaya's waist. Their kisses were clumsy and hard and deep and passionate, and all of Thedas might well have fallen into the Void around them for all they knew, or for all they cared.

There was no telling how long they stayed like that, arms wrapped about each other, lost in countless kisses. Elonaya's muscles began to ache from the cold, and she was sure Cassandra's abdominal wound was not taking kindly to their position, but even when at last they broke apart for a moment to breathe, foreheads still touching, eyes half-closed, almost panting, neither of them was particularly willing to move. Once they moved, the moment was over.

"We should...probably...get some rest," Elonaya murmured reluctantly. She felt Cassandra's hands smoothing her hair, and her shiver had nothing to do with the cold.

"Probably," Cassandra agreed.

With agonizing slowness, they broke apart. Everything still felt dim and vague, and there was at once a heaviness and a lightness in Elonaya's heart that she could not reconcile. Elonaya helped Cassandra to stand, and together they walked the handful of steps towards their tents as though it were an arduous journey, arms linked gently, each of them with their eyes decidedly downcast.

Elonaya looked up at last, and Cassandra met her gaze with those dark, burning eyes, and an entirely new and equally indiscernible expression. She looked...younger, somehow, in that moment, and not quite as impossibly tired as usual. For the second time in the extent of their acquaintance, Cassandra awarded Elonaya the tiniest of smiles, and Elonaya felt that she might just let the world burn around her if only she could stay in this moment for awhile longer.

"Is this the end?" she wondered, unable to stop herself, unable to look away or to live another moment not knowing.

Cassandra's brow furrowed further. "I...did you mean what you said?"

Elonaya nodded solemnly. She felt in that moment that she had never meant anything more than to say that she had never loved anyone until now.

"Then..." Cassandra averted her eyes for a moment, took Elonaya's hands between hers. "Perhaps...that is to say, I hope...it can be the beginning."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oops I lied it's a two-shot now!

She didn't mention the others.

At the time they had seemed almost irrelevant, superfluous details that did not lead anywhere—like in some of Varric's stories, but not even dressed up in pretty prose, because Cassandra was no writer, and her life was no romantic tale.  (try though many had to beat it into one.)  Cassandra had spent so much of her life wrapped up in one global crisis or another, she'd little time to worry about such frivolous matters.

The first had been when she was very young.  She'd been half-mad at the time, still wrought with grief over her brother's death, still unaccustomed to the strange hyperfocus afforded to her by her Seeker training.

She was a templar—a fierce two-handed warrior with a sharp tongue and muscles that matched her bulky armour.  Cassandra never knew her name, for the Templars addressed one another almost exclusively by rank.  At the time Cassandra had thought little of it.  She had assumed she'd been so enraptured by the woman simply because she herself had wanted to be a Templar, and because there were so few female Templars to speak of, or even two-handed warriors, for that matter.

Still, she'd told no one.

The woman wasn't precisely beautiful.  Her cropped hair drew attention to the hardness of her face, and the garish scars upon it.  But Cassandra had found her absolutely breathtaking, and without fully realizing it, had later modeled herself in that woman's image.

Then there'd been Galyan.  That had felt like...frustration, mostly.  Cassandra tried not to think about it much.  He was gone now, so it didn't matter anymore.  (so she repeatedly told herself when her mind woke her in the middle of the night trying to puzzle through why she could never bring herself to love him.)

She'd been scarcely more than a child still when she'd been called to serve as Right Hand to Divine Beatrix—she could see that now, though at the time she'd thrown herself into the responsibility wholeheartedly.  It had utterly usurped her youth, but she'd been more than happy to sacrifice something so frivolous as that.

She must still have been nineteen when the Chantry sister had captured her attention.  Cassandra had been so busy—indeed, so intentionally busy—that she'd barely slept during those early years, but she had always made time for Amaranthine.  They didn't speak much—didn't have much to say.  Cassandra often wondered what about Amaranthine had drawn her eye when they had so little in common, and had realized much later that it had largely been based upon mutual desperation for physical contact.

As time went on, they had become less than discreet.  Amaranthine had been sent away, and Cassandra had been harshly reprimanded, and relegated to solitary confinement for some terrible, indeterminate amount of time.

 That had been more than enough to frighten her back to Galyan again.  In hindsight she felt a bit badly for how she'd used him, but how could she have known that was what she was doing?

(it doesn't matter anymore, Cassandra.  he's gone.  he is gone he is gone he is _gone_ so it doesn't matter.)

There had been a few others.  A handful, perhaps, over the past seventeen (eighteen?) years since then.  They were as nothing—cracks in her resolve, half-forgotten almost as soon as they began.  That she should be so stricken by a woman again—not merely charmed or fascinated, but truly enraptured, as though she were a wide-eyed young Seeker looking upon an untold wonder—this was nothing short of terrifying.

At first glance, Inquisitor Lavellan was not what one would call charming, or even necessarily beautiful.  The things one noticed about her first were the angry Dalish markings that obscured her face and the hostile mistrust most Dalish elves showed to outsiders.  Though Cassandra's gut reaction was to snap back, she had long since learned that her reactionary instincts were not always the best.  She realized shortly after she'd nearly beaten Lavellan to death that she'd most likely been very, very mistaken.

But what she'd quickly learned was that, not unlike the mystery Templar woman all those years ago, Elonaya had a beauty and charm utterly divorced from the things Cassandra had come to know or expect from such concepts.  There was something striking in her righteous anger, something disarming in her occasional bursts of what Cassandra could only read as honesty.

_Anyone would be lucky to have your attention._

_Not so_ , Cassandra had wanted to say.  To what had she ever given her attention that had not ended in ruin?

These were the thoughts that had preoccupied Cassandra for the better part of this day, or perhaps night.  It was difficult to tell in these wretched locales where demons poured from the sky as easily as rain, and the stormclouds only grew darker and heavier with time.  They hardly stopped to make camp, for they'd all grown so accustomed to exhaustion that it was hardly noticeable, and none of them could sleep for more than an hour or two at a time.

Well, except for Solas.  But to him the Fade seemed only an extension of the waking world, or, more likely, it was the other way around.

Cassandra knew for a fact that Varric rarely slept, for she'd seen him wandering the ramparts or lingering in the tavern at all hours, but he still cut her a wide berth since she'd nearly strangled him to death a few weeks ago, and so retired early with few words.

The end result was that Cassandra and Elonaya were invariably left awake to build a fire and nurse whatever slightly disconcerting bottle of old liquour they'd stumbled across that week until they were tired or drunk enough to drift off for a few blissful hours.

Cassandra knew that Elonaya did not need her to gather wood to start a fire, but mercifully, Elonaya did not bring it up, and allowed her the pretense.  When at last Cassandra all but fell to the ground before the roaring flames, she realized the full extent of the soreness in her lower back and heaved a long sigh.  "I feel as though the end must be approaching," she said.  "Does that make sense to you?  Not that it is, but that it must be?"

Elonaya nodded solemnly.  "None of us can go on like this for much longer," she agreed.  Then, a small, lopsided smile twisted the markings on the lighter side of her face.  "I can tell because even you look tired."

"Even I?"

Elonaya's response was a quiet, tired sort of laughter.  "You must know that without your resolve in battle, we'd all of us be dead within the hour," she said offhandedly, rummaging through her bag as though it were nothing.

"Hardly," Cassandra protested.  "Every one of your chosen companions fights bravely.  You...fight bravely."

"True," Elonaya nodded.  "I'm all right for having picked up my battle magic on the fly, but where would I be if I had to bear the brunt of a greatsword or ten, I ask you?"

Before Cassandra could respond, her attention was drawn by a tattered book Elonaya had retrieved from her bag.

"Found this along the way and thought it might interest you," said Elonaya.  "Here, wait, I dog-eared a page—

On aching branch do blossoms grow,  
The wind a hallowed breath,  
It carries the scent of honeysuckle—  
Sweet as the lovers kiss.  
It brings the promise of more tomorrows,  
Of sighs and whispered—"

"You can't be serious."  She was choking on her own words.  She knew this poem.

"I can," Elonaya looked up, bright grey eyes shining earnestly beneath the dark blood writing.  "And I am."

"And that is the poem you chose?"  A failed attempt at levity.  Cassandra's emotions were spinning out of control and she couldn't find one to hold onto.  She held out her hand and Elonaya gave her the book.  "I...thought this one was banned," she murmured.

"It...may have taken some digging around," Elonaya confessed.

Cassandra kept her eyes trained on the pages, turned one after the other, slowly, tried to slow the beating of her heart.  The Inquisitor had gone out of her way to track down a silly book of poetry, for her.  Had read enough of them to decide on a page to mark.  Had remembered what Cassandra had said what seemed a lifetime ago already, about longing for...

"This is one of my favourites," she said.

"His lips on mine speak words not voiced,  
A prayer which travels down my spine  
like flames that shatter night  
His eyes reflect the heaven's stars,  
the Maker's light  
My body opens, filled and blessed,  
My spirit there, not merely housed in flesh,  
But brought to life..."

She wasn't looking at the page anymore, but at Elonaya, whose attention was rapt.  Cassandra closed the book and clutched it tightly against her chest, held it like the tattered remnants of a failing shield against her heart.  In Elonaya's steely grey eyes she saw the hard brown of the fearsome Templar woman, the speckled green and gold hazel of Amaranthine, and a small array of other lovers, flashes of colour and light in a life of studious darkness.

 _Thank you_ , she wanted to say, but that did not even nearly cover it.  Did not even touch upon it.  Things had changed a great deal in Thedas since the days when Cassandra had been thrown into a cell for her treacherous affections, but not so much that a terrible fear did not still flicker in her chest.  She had never dared to love, she realized, because to dare had never seemed worth the risk.  All her life she had done what she felt was her duty, fought and wheedled and charged headlong into orders which did not particularly want her there because she knew she must be there, for nothing else had ever mattered to her quite as much as that.

But now...now that the woman she served and the woman she revered and the woman she was rapidly coming to adore were one and the same...how was she to proceed?

Cassandra knelt, though it pained her sore muscles to do it, and set the book at Elonaya's feet.  She reached for Elonaya's hands, and pressed her forehead into them, a silent oath of fealty to the Herald of Andraste, and to her own personal herald of change, of new beginnings.  Then she pressed her lips to Elonaya's knuckles, vaguely aware that there was a wetness around her eyes.  She looked up at Elonaya, whose expression was something between perplexity and concern.

"I confess I'm not sure if this is a positive reaction," she said, with a small, lopsided smile.  "I hope I haven't upset you."  Then she, too, adjusted so that she could kneel, and freed one of her hands to wipe at Cassandra's eyes.

Cassandra caught her hand once more and pressed a kiss into her palm.  "Upset me..." she echoed, and the words hardly made sense to her.  "No."  She released Elonaya's hands in favour of her waist and pulled her into a feverish kiss.

"Thank you," she murmured against Elonaya's lips, and even this seemed insufficient.  She pulled away just enough to look into Elonaya's eyes, and struggled to put even a fraction of her feelings into words.  "I do not know how to thank you.  Not just for the book, I mean.  It is...something beyond words that you have given me.  You have seen me, and you have understood..." Cassandra shook her head, unable to think of anything better to say.

Elonaya had gazed upon Cassandra's secret love for the tokens of romantic idealism, had listened to Cassandra's words of rejection thinly veiling a desperate longing, and had somehow managed, whether consciously or subconsciously, to understand what they meant, to take the shattered fragments of Cassandra's secret self, the cracks in her resolve she'd tried so hard to ignore all these years, and turn them into something whole.

* * *

 

The time that followed that precious memory was perilous, to say the least.  Each new day, each new hour, each new moment seemed like it would be their last.  In the event that she survived, Cassandra began to look to the future. 

There was talk of naming her the next Divine, a possibility which did not seem as absurd to her as it would have even a year prior, but another part of her yearned to rebuild the Seekers of Truth which had so shaped her life.  She was not a woman designed to sit idle, nor was she particularly skilled with diplomacy, yet if the position were offered to her, how could she possibly turn up her nose at such an opportunity to enact the changes she would like to see in the world?

Her time with Elonaya became even more scarce, and still more precious.  In the deepest recesses of her mind, Cassandra dared to wonder what it might be like to have the luxury of time, to spend a lazy afternoon together, or even more than a few stolen moments sometime late at night or early in the morning, when neither of them could bear to sleep.

Elonaya had made it clear, with a sincerity that threw Cassandra entirely off her guard, that she was serious about pursuing Cassandra despite their chaotic circumstances, but Cassandra could not help but to question this assertion.  Was it, as with Amaranthine, precisely because of their chaotic circumstances that they were drawn together?  Was Elonaya perhaps a bit younger and a bit more naive than she seemed at first glance, and would her flights of fancy change when she was not constantly hovering upon the brink of annihilation?

When the final battle ended and Corypheus's orb exploded, everyone for miles around was knocked off their feet.  Cassandra saw only smoke, felt only pain, heard only screaming and groaning and death.  As she clamoured to her feet she said a silent prayer to the Maker, or Andraste, or anyone who might be listening—

 _Please, do not take her from me.  Not now.  Not after all we have been through, or before we have the time to know what might someday be_.

As the world grew eerily still, she thought of all the time she had wasted on fear, on regret, on blind vengeance, and she fell to her knees and wept bitterly for several minutes before she was seized by that old, familiar need that rooted itself in the very core of her being, the need to discover the truth, at any cost.

She crawled on hands and knees until she could will herself to stand, searched desperately through the wreckage and the bodies and the smoke, until she felt rather than saw a presence from above.

At the top of one of countless crumbling stairways stood Elonaya, instantly recognizable even through the heavy haze, crouched, injured, but _alive_ , clutching her side with one hand and brandishing her staff with the other.  Cassandra called to mind something the elf Sera had said—that Elonaya glowed, like a holy figure should—and saw in this moment that it was true.  Perhaps she truly was ordained by Andraste, or perhaps it had to do with the magic in the mark on her hand, but Cassandra could see it, clear as day, and so could everyone else who was still standing now, huddled together and looking up, awaiting instruction from their hero, their Inquisitor, their Herald.

A few days later, when they had all had a bit of time to heal and regroup, Lady Josephine threw together a splendid celebration in Skyhold's grand foyer.  Cassandra received word that she was the first choice for the next Divine, and for the first time in her life, she found herself truly torn.

Did she follow the demands of her lifelong commitment to duty?  Do as her faith dictated, and do her best to use the power for good, or at least better?  Or...did she follow the far murkier, more dangerous advice of her heart?  Turn down the offer, rebuild the Seekers, retain some small semblance of personal freedom?

Personal freedom had never mattered to her before, and a part of her was appalled that it should play any role in her decision now.  But when she thought of how even Divine Justinia had grown weary of staying put from time to time, she felt something akin to panic with regard to her own insatiable wanderlust.  And when she locked eyes with Elonaya from across the room, well...

(much had changed since Cassandra had been thrown in a cell for the nature of her affections, but as the saying went, the more things changed, the more they...)

Awhile later, Cassandra took a seat and ordered a drink.  She hadn't been much of a drinker until the sky had burst open, but it had kept her stress levels quite manageable, so she couldn't be too concerned about the change of habit.  She surveyed the room with a kind of distant sadness.  She would not call most of these people her friends, by any stretch, but some of them had become sort of strained acquaintances, at least.  She'd never expected, for example, that Varric would forgive her for twice almost having him executed, but when their eyes met, he gave her a cordial nod.  Lady Vivienne, too, though perhaps even more standoffish than Cassandra, was pleasant enough company, and raised her glass in Cassandra's direction when their eyes met.

But on the whole, as ever, Cassandra had few ties to any particular place or person.  She had spent so much of her life running around for one cause or another that anywhere she rested her head was just as much home to her as anywhere else.  She wasn't certain how to feel about this revelation, or what it meant for her offer to become a figurehead of the Chantry, more than a little divorced from her former self.  There were few who would miss her if she decided to leave behind everything she was, everything she had ever been.

Perhaps it was her destiny to become Divine, as well as her duty.  Perhaps this was the best of what she could hope to achieve, the culmination of her life's work.

"Having fun?"

From over her left shoulder came Elonaya's voice, and Cassandra immediately felt her mood brighten.  She looked up as Elonaya came around to sit across from her.

"You're looking rather grim and fatalistic," Elonaya continued pleasantly.  "For any other party, I'd say it was out of place."

"I can't believe it," said Cassandra, shaking her head.  "It seemed an impossible task.  Yet..." she took a drink, but Elonaya waited patiently, so she finished, somewhat less eloquently than she'd hoped, "...here we are.  Celebrating."

Elonaya touched Cassandra's arm lightly.  "None of it could have happened without you, Cassandra."

Cassandra gazed down at Elonaya's hand on her arm for a long moment before she spoke.  "I have news from the Sequester," she said, slowly.  "I...believe the Chantry intends to name me Divine.  Very soon."

Elonaya didn't react, except for a slight, hardly noticeable curl of her fingers.  "Oh," she said.  "You don't...seem as happy about it as I'd have thought."

Cassandra looked up.  "Not so long ago I would never have questioned what I wanted, or whether such a thing even mattered."

Elonaya's brow furrowed, gently distorted the Dalish markings on her face.  "But now?"

Cassandra lay her other hand atop Elonaya's, allowed her vision to fall to their hands once more.  "In all my years as a Seeker, I did what I was told.  With...a few notable exceptions.  Now, I wonder if...perhaps...I could be allowed some freedom.  To pursue..." she looked up again, and again saw Elonaya's steely grey eyes, and the Templar's hard brown, and Amaranthine's speckled hazel all at once, "...a more personal form of happiness."

Elonaya's response was that small half-smile that had come to twist Cassandra's heart within her chest.  "Well," she said, "let it be known that the Inquisitor's formal opinion is that, for her incredible bravery and incomparable resolve, the Lady Pentaghast should be afforded any and every happiness her heart desires."  Elonaya took Cassandra's hand and pressed it to her lips, and Cassandra felt an entirely unfamiliar hotness in her cheeks which caused her to avert her gaze.

"You flatter me," she murmured.

"I try," Elonaya replied.  "So, what would you do, if not become the Holiest of the Holy or whatever?"

Cassandra sighed.  "I would...rebuild the Seekers of Truth.  Help to restore order in the world in immediate and tangible ways, ways I could see with my own eyes.  I would..." she frowned, once more focused her attention on their hands, "...remain at your side for awhile, if you so wished.  Take some of the time that we were never afforded before."  She looked up.  "But it is selfish, is it not?  I could do a lot of good as Divine, I think.  If the offer is made, I should not turn it aside."

"But you still want to?  Turn it aside, I mean?"

She remembered those early, feverish days among the Seekers, compared them with the early, feverish year as the Divine's right hand, and most recently, the early, feverish days following the explosion at the Conclave.  "It's easy to imagine throwing myself into it," she said.  "A new role, a new project.  A new life.  Now that I think of it, it seems this is what I have always done.  But—"

But perhaps it was time to try doing something new.

"Inquisitor, a word?"

"Just a moment, Leliana."

Cassandra swallowed her meaningless ramble, averted her gaze once more.  She felt raw and exposed in a way she seldom did, and it frightened her.  Not knowing what to do was a state of being utterly foreign to her.  "I have taken up too much of your time already, my Lady Inquisitor," she said.

"Not at all," Elonaya stood, but she seemed in no hurry to take her leave.  She came around the table to stand near Cassandra—the only way Elonaya could ever tower over her—and lightly ran her fingers through Cassandra's hair.  (it was getting shaggy—she needed to trim it soon.)  "One hopes that in the days to come, we'll get some of that extra time you were talking about." 

She leaned down and kissed Cassandra's forehead, and Cassandra felt heart flip and her face flush hot once again.  She wanted to protest—all these people!—but at the same time, she didn't want to protest even one little bit.

"And when that time comes," Elonaya continued, "I hope to hear every last thing that's on your mind.  No, wait," Elonaya kissed her forehead again, and Cassandra was nearly beside herself, "Everything that's ever been on your mind.  Past and present." Elonaya gave her that little half smile, and Cassandra could not help but to return it.  "Alas, until then—" she gestured to Leliana, waiting in the shadows as she always seemed to.

Cassandra watched Elonaya go, thought of the fear and disgust she'd felt when she first laid eyes on the Dalish prisoner who had survived an explosion that had torn the world—both the entire world, and Cassandra's personal world—asunder.  Now, here they were.  The Dalish prisoner was the Herald, the Inquisitor, a symbol of hope and change.  And Cassandra was...

Cassandra found in this moment that she was either brave enough or foolish enough, at least in the privacy of her own mind, to admit that she was very much in love.

"How did that happen, I wonder?" she murmured.


End file.
